Shadows of Night
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: Dean isn't as 'okay' after his stay in hell as he pretends, and at night Sam can see what it's done to his brother.


Title: Shadows of Night  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: Season Four  
Summary: Dean isn't as 'okay' after his stay in hell as he pretends, and at night Sam can see what its done to his brother.  
Disclaimer: As if anyone is surprised, but none of it's mine.  
With much gratitude: I want to thank my techno-lohtar, Sierra Phoenix, who makes posting of my fics possible and slaved herself out as my beta.

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It's hard for Sam to watch Dean at night. Dean might not remember hell (or at least he says he doesn't), but something in him definitely remembers when he sleeps.

When Dean Winchester first rose from the dead, Sam thought it was a gift. During the day, he still does. But the nights… the nights aren't so far from the hell Dean escaped, and this time it's both of theirs to suffer.

Dean hardly sleeps anymore, and Sam doesn't. When Dean manages to surrender to his exhaustion the memories erupt, hot and violent like magma questing toward the sky. Sam sits upright in dark motel room after dark motel room, night-black eyes turned toward his brother as Dean relives his months in the pit. He gasps and whimpers and sometimes outright screams. He bucks and jerks, his body arches off the bed. He sounds like he's being pulled apart.

Sam's price to pay to have his brother back is to listen to the agony every night. He can't do anything to ease Dean's suffering. When he tries to interfere, he's attacked for his trouble. Dean's not his brother in the night. He's a hurt, terrified, wounded animal… just as mindless and every bit as dangerous. A man like Dean Winchester is not one to be underestimated. Sam learned to stay clear of his tormented brother after the first dislocated jaw. Dean doesn't even remember doing that; when he's in a nightmare, he's not lucid. When Dean asked the next morning why Sam was chewing and talking funny, Sam blamed their latest hunt.

Sam can't bear to see Dean shoulder the guilt of hurting his little brother. He's got enough to deal with… or not. He's not dealing, he's spiraling, and Sam doesn't know how to stop the torque.

Sam wonders how long Dean thinks he can fake okay in the light. He's cracking the right jokes and admiring the right women, but it's not in earnest. Dean's operating on habitual patterns, smiling with as much heart as one ties their shoes. He's playing along in a game he's lost, and Sam wants to shake his brother and get him to stop pretending he hadn't been in hell.

Everyone else who's bubbled up from the depths of hell had black eyes. Sam's scared Dean isn't too far off with what he is now. Some days, Sam does a double-take when he catches sight of his brother, waiting, expecting…

Dean's bullshitting his way through each day with a vengeance. As though he can _make_ things okay by faking it hard enough. As if he can ignore away the drinking that is all that gets him through the razor-sharp pain of living. As though flippant quips can mask the way Dean's losing weight. Dean forces the smiles that never reach his eyes, flirts with girls he never takes to his bed anymore, and Sam prays he'll never have to raise his hand against his brother to drive his blackened soul back down to hell.

Maybe Dean escaped hell, but hell didn't escape him. Torture is on him like a cloak he can't shed, and at night Dean is there again. Wrapped in misery and sharing it with his younger brother.

Another night, another cycle, another sleepless stretch of black eternity with his brother's cries his cross, and Sam is on the edge of broken. He doesn't know how much longer he can listen to Dean's pain. This is so far beyond what they can handle; the Winchester boys are built of stern stuff, but what Dean's going through is worse than all the awful shit they've seen and done.

Dean lets loose a strangled cry that crumbles into a sob. His body is sweat-soaked and shaking. His hands fist in the bed sheets in white-knuckle grips to match Sam's. His face is contorted in horror, made the worse by the slanted light slicing through the window blinds and painting black claw marks down the side of Dean's face.

A wind howls outside, tonight's hell hounds, and Dean freezes. Entire body locked, the older Winchester boy's jaw is clenched so tight the muscles in his face are twitching. Sam swallows and wants to look away but knows he never will. Never can. If he ever wants to sleep again, they'll have to get separate rooms. For his sake he should, but for Dean's he won't. Maybe Sam can't do anything to help, but he can't make himself put a wall between them, either.

Dean gasps and barks an abrupt cry, twists violently, tangles in the sheets, and throws himself to the floor. Sam stiffens. The crash wakes Dean and he starts to consciousness and immediately flails. Fists and feet strike out for anything in range.

In a few seconds brutal motion gives way to rigid stillness. Dean works it out, where he is, where he's not, and Sam can tell the switch in the sound of Dean's breathing.

Sam takes a steadying breath and slips to the floor in the space between their hotel beds where Dean is curled in a ball. "Dean…" he whispered hoarsely.

At first there's only the wind. Then, raspy and weak, "Sam…?"

"… yeah…"

"You okay?"

Sam lets the bitter smile come because the night will hide it. Dean can't relinquish his duty to look after Sam. It's burned into his brain just as deep and thick as hell into his soul. He'll wake up screaming, and he'll wake up screaming for Sam.

Sam wonders, if someone took away Dean's suffering and his little brother, if there would be anything left of Dean Winchester.

Sam's chest is crushing in on itself in helplessness. He thinks of how much kinder it would have been for both of them if one of the nasty things they hunt had gotten them both before now.

"Fine… nightmare…" Sam mutters back.

There's quiet at first, then movement. Eventually, Sam feels Dean sidle up, wet and wrung, beside him. "I'm here, Sammy," Dean croaks. Does Dean understand Sam meant Dean's nightmare and not his own? _Was_ Sam talking about Dean? Is Dean's reassurance of 'I'm here' for Sam or Dean himself?

Sam doesn't know anymore. All he knows is he's tired and heartsick, for his own sake and for Dean's. Why did saving people have to mean they shouldered so much pain? There was no justice when it came down to a dark hotel room and two broken brothers.

Sam leans into Dean and wishes for daylight.

When they can both fake fine before the night.

END


End file.
